February 29, 2004 - Denver Post: Many consider Maurice "Maury" Albertson, retired director of Colorado State University's Research Foundation a co-founder of the Peace Corps, which Monday celebrates its 43rd anniversary

Many consider Maurice "Maury" Albertson, retired director of Colorado State University's Research Foundation a co-founder of the Peace Corps, which Monday celebrates its 43rd anniversary

Many consider Albertson a co-founder of the volunteer organization, which Monday celebrates its 43rd anniversary. It all began to take shape in 1960, when Albertson won a highly competitive federal grant of $10,000 to study for Congress "the advisability and practicality" of something called a "Point-4 Youth Corps." "I pulled together a faculty of 100 person-years of working in Third World countries, and we conjured up a proposal," he recalled during a recent interview over hot chocolate and brownies. Shriver and Albertson, a lifelong Republican, had their differences during the process of hammering out the details of the Peace Corps. "I recommended ROTC-type training for the volunteers," Albertson said. "He just exploded. It was the only time I saw Sarge lose his cool, and I backed off. "He asked me to set up a mentor and evaluation program so we didn't have to make the same mistakes twice." Shriver also turned down Albertson's plan to rely on college and university professors for that program. He preferred "newspaper reporters and lawyers because they are used to asking questions."

PCOL Comment: Founder: (noun) a person who founds or establishes [Origin: c.1330, from O.Fr. fondrer "submerge, fall to the bottom," from fond "bottom," from L. fundus "bottom, foundation"]. Maurice Albertson was one of the founders of the Peace Corps along with Henry Ruess, Hubert Humphrey, Brien McMahon, Richard L. Neuberger, Warren Wiggins, William Josephson, Harris Wofford, Bill Moyers, William Haddad, and many others with a host of inspirations including the IVS, the Experiment in International Living, the IDPA, the Thomasites and Plato, according to some. John F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver also had something to do with founding the Peace Corps.

FORT COLLINS - Maurice "Maury" Albertson, retired director of Colorado State University's Research Foundation, remembers well the events that shaped the U.S. Peace Corps.

Many consider Albertson a co-founder of the volunteer organization, which Monday celebrates its 43rd anniversary.

It all began to take shape in 1960, when Albertson won a highly competitive federal grant of $10,000 to study for Congress "the advisability and practicality" of something called a "Point-4 Youth Corps."

"I pulled together a faculty of 100 person-years of working in Third World countries, and we conjured up a proposal," he recalled during a recent interview over hot chocolate and brownies.

President Kennedy later created the Peace Corps by executive order on March 1, 1961. Since then, 170,000 volunteers have served in 137 countries. Those totals include 7,533 current volunteers and trainees working in 71 countries. In fiscal 2003, the organization had a budget of $295 million.

Albertson, who understands the importance of sending bright young Americans overseas - without guns - to build friendships and understanding while helping in developing countries, had the background and energy to get the job done.

At the time he began working on his proposal, he had recently returned from Bangkok, Thailand. There, he had pulled together a nucleus faculty and graduate student body to form the School of Civil Engineering, which ultimately expanded to became the prestigious Asian Institute of Technology.

Albertson initially worked closely with the first Peace Corps director, President Kennedy's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, to mold the organization.

He first heard from Shriver at 2 a.m. on a Sunday. "He wanted me in Washington that morning, and I was just back from a trip," he said.

They reached a compromise.

During the weeks before Congress approved funding for the new Peace Corps, "Shriver never ate a meal without at least one member of Congress," Albertson said.

A growing task force hammered out many details that would shape the fledgling corps of volunteers. Albertson was not involved in that.

But the first director of Peace Corps operations, Warren Wiggins, says Albertson's early role was vital. His initial feasibility study "was right on target, a credible report which was widely circulated. Maury was always eager and always helpful," Wiggins said.

The idea of an overseas service corps of American college and university graduates was first raised in the late 1950s by Sen. Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., and Rep. Henry Reuss, D-Wis.

The concept had deep roots, Albertson noted, reaching back to the "Thomasites" of 1901 and the American Friends Service Committee, founded in 1917 by members of the Religious Society of Friends in the United States to provide young Quakers and other conscientious objectors to war an opportunity to work overseas peacefully in time of war.

The "Thomasites" were named after the U.S. Army Transport Thomas, which carried 540 high-minded American teachers and some of their families to the Philippines in 1901 to teach English.

The Friends have worked in trouble spots around the world since World War I, providing emergency relief to refugees.

Shriver and Albertson, a lifelong Republican, had their differences during the process of hammering out the details of the Peace Corps.

"I recommended ROTC-type training for the volunteers," Albertson said. "He just exploded. It was the only time I saw Sarge lose his cool, and I backed off.

"He asked me to set up a mentor and evaluation program so we didn't have to make the same mistakes twice."

Shriver also turned down Albertson's plan to rely on college and university professors for that program. He preferred "newspaper reporters and lawyers because they are used to asking questions."

But the two agreed on giving volunteers two-year tours of duty, enough time to get acquainted with the land, people and customs while sharing their skills in education, health, agriculture, urban planning, skilled trades, forestry, sanitation or technology.

Now 85, Albertson says he would like to see "an international (worldwide) Peace Corps, patterned after the (U.S.) Peace Corps but under the United Nations, to provide capable, inexpensive personnel" to work in service centers and villages around the globe.

"This would mean a major effort to get the U.N. to pull together all countries who have money to eliminate poverty for 4 billion people," said Albertson, who sent a presentation outlining the idea to Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign.

He blames "American arrogance and seeming indifference to the devastating poverty of more than half the world's population" for the hostility that led to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Albertson has served as a consultant at various times to the World Bank, UNESCO, the Peace Corps and other agencies in developing countries but says the programs haven't helped the masses.

"The many billions of dollars those agencies have put into the less-developed countries in the past 50 years have increased the gross national product of each country and the wealth of the 20 percent of the population who control the country," he said.

"But the number of people living in poverty (less than $2 a day) has increased and the gap between the rich and the poor has increased," he asserts in his presentation for a massive global effort to drastically reduce poverty and hostility and find a renewable, nonpolluting energy.

Albertson believes the idea of the international Peace Corps could give Kerry's campaign a boost similar to the one Kennedy's campaign received when he first advocated the founding of a U.S. corps. But he has not heard back from Kerry on his proposal.

PCOL serves half millionPCOL's readership for April exceeded 525,000 visitors - a 50% increase over last year. This year also saw the advent of a new web site: Peace Corps News that together with the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps serve 17,000 RPCVs, Staff, and Friends of the Peace Corps every day. Thanks for making PCOL your source of news for the Peace Corps community. Read more.

Suspect confesses in murder of PCVSearch parties in the Philippines discovered the body of Peace Corps Volunteer Julia Campbell near Barangay Batad, Banaue town on April 17. Director Tschetter expressed his sorrow at learning the news. “Julia was a proud member of the Peace Corps family, and she contributed greatly to the lives of Filipino citizens in Donsol, Sorsogon, where she served,” he said. Latest: Suspect Juan Duntugan admits to killing Campbell. Leave your thoughts and condolences .

Warren Wiggins: Architect of the Peace CorpsWarren Wiggins, who died at 84 on April 13, became one of the architects of the Peace Corps in 1961 when his paper, "A Towering Task," landed in the lap of Sargent Shriver, just as Shriver was trying to figure out how to turn the Peace Corps into a working federal department. Shriver was electrified by the treatise, which urged the agency to act boldly. Read Mr. Wiggins' obituary and biography, take an opportunity to read the original document that shaped the Peace Corps' mission, and read John Coyne's special issue commemorating "A Towering Task."

Chris Dodd's Vision for the Peace CorpsSenator Chris Dodd (RPCV Dominican Republic) spoke at the ceremony for this year's Shriver Award and elaborated on issues he raised at Ron Tschetter's hearings. Dodd plans to introduce legislation that may include: setting aside a portion of Peace Corps' budget as seed money for demonstration projects and third goal activities (after adjusting the annual budget upward to accommodate the added expense), more volunteer input into Peace Corps operations, removing medical, healthcare and tax impediments that discourage older volunteers, providing more transparency in the medical screening and appeals process, a more comprehensive health safety net for recently-returned volunteers, and authorizing volunteers to accept, under certain circumstances, private donations to support their development projects. He plans to circulate draft legislation for review to members of the Peace Corps community and welcomes RPCV comments.

He served with honorOne year ago, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul (RPCV Kenya) carried on an ongoing dialog on this website on the military and the peace corps and his role as a member of a Civil Affairs Team in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have just received a report that Sargeant Paul has been killed by a car bomb in Kabul. Words cannot express our feeling of loss for this tremendous injury to the entire RPCV community. Most of us didn't know him personally but we knew him from his words. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He was one of ours and he served with honor.

Peace Corps' Screening and Medical ClearanceThe purpose of Peace Corps' screening and medical clearance process is to ensure safe accommodation for applicants and minimize undue risk exposure for volunteers to allow PCVS to complete their service without compromising their entry health status. To further these goals, PCOL has obtained a copy of the Peace Corps Screening Guidelines Manual through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and has posted it in the "Peace Corps Library." Applicants and Medical Professionals (especially those who have already served as volunteers) are urged to review the guidelines and leave their comments and suggestions. Then read the story of one RPCV's journey through medical screening and his suggestions for changes to the process.

The Peace Corps is "fashionable" againThe LA Times says that "the Peace Corps is booming again and "It's hard to know exactly what's behind the resurgence." PCOL Comment: Since the founding of the Peace Corps 45 years ago, Americans have answered Kennedy's call: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." Over 182,000 have served. Another 200,000 have applied and been unable to serve because of lack of Congressional funding. The Peace Corps has never gone out of fashion. It's Congress that hasn't been keeping pace.

PCOL readership increases 100%Monthly readership on "Peace Corps Online" has increased in the past twelve months to 350,000 visitors - over eleven thousand every day - a 100% increase since this time last year. Thanks again, RPCVs and Friends of the Peace Corps, for making PCOL your source of information for the Peace Corps community. And thanks for supporting the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

History of the Peace CorpsPCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help.

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Story Source: Denver Post

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